Image registration finds wide application in medical imaging. Image registration typically entails finding a geometric transform that non-ambiguously links locations and orientations of the same objects or parts thereof in different images. More particularly, image registration includes transforming the different sets of image data to a common coordinate space. The images may be obtained by different imaging devices or alternatively by the same imaging device but at different imaging sessions or time points. As will be appreciated, in the field of medical imaging, there has been a steady increase in the number of imaging sessions or scans a patient undergoes. Images of a body part may be obtained temporally from the same imaging modality or system. Alternatively, in multi-modal imaging, images of the same body parts may be captured via use of different imaging modalities such as a radiological imaging by an X-ray imaging system (e.g., a computed tomography (CT) imaging system), a magnetic resonance (MR) imaging system, an ultrasound imaging system or a positron emission tomography (PET) imaging system, and/or the like.
Lack of explicit image registration when comparing different images relies on human interpretation and mental rotations, which result in miss-communication and difficult navigation for clinicians using the unregistered images. For example, cardiologists trained in echocardiography and cardiologists or surgeons trained in X-ray guided procedures have different perspectives and languages related to imaging and image-guidance. Based on the different perspectives, clinicians must manually find the best views and/or slices for certain anatomical structures for a procedures.